Canadians Spending Less in Coachella Valley

The Canadian dollar is not gaining any strength right now.It has lagged for about a year and a half.

While Wall Street is soaring, the amount Canadians are spending here in the Coachella Valley is dropping.The Canadian dollar continues to struggle leaving our northern neighbors a little lighter in the wallet.

"It makes me sad because it would be nice if it were closer to par," said Marnie McNeill, a resident of British Columbia who lives part of the year here.

It's almost the exact amount as March last year at 75 cents of our dollar.

Some Canadians worry about what President Trump will do with the North American Free Trade Agreement."It could really impact on Canada, and it could make our dollar much worse, so I hope he takes that into consideration," said Bob Scott, a Vancouver resident who also lives here part-time.

Canadian visitors are a big part of our economy, and Palm Springs director of Tourism, Mary Jo Ginther, says they are spending less.

"Year over year in the city of Palm Springs, it's been about a ten percent decrease," said Ginther.That's from Visa credit card data.

Hotel and vacation home rental stays are also down."Many of them are shorter stays, they're still coming to Palm Springs, they still love Palm Springs, less dinners in restaurants, less golf," said Ginther.

Scott says he is paying less, "I would say things like going out to dinner, maybe shopping changes a bit."

There is a silver lining: flights are actually doing well.

In fact, a couple months ago another one was added by Air Canada from Toronto.

"Everything that I've heard, the flight is doing great, Air Canada is very happy with Palm Springs," said Ginther.

So our sunny skies may be be overriding the gloomy dollar forecast."It's cheaper for us to go to Europe and places like that, but I love Palm Desert," said McNeill.

Now it also works the other way as a Canadian news report (CBC) says tourism could be record-setting up there thanks to the weak dollar.

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Authorities have released the names of the woman and the ex-husband who shot her to death at a busy Southern California mall. The Ventura County Sheriff's Office identified the victim in Saturday's shooting as 29-year-old Parisa Siddiqi and the suspect as 33-year-old Kevin Crane. Officials say she was working at a retail store at The Oaks mall in the city of Thousand Oaks, about 40 miles west of Los Angeles, when Crane shot her after an argument. Investigators say Crane then s...